Alan Caruba's blog is a daily look at events, personalities, and issues from an independent point of view. Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2015. With attribution, posts may be shared. A permission request is welcome. Email acaruba@aol.com.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The EPA is a Nation-Killer

By Alan
Caruba

To the
naïve and uninformed, the Environmental Protection Agency exists to ensure
clean air and water in the nation. That was its initial mandate when it was
created by an executive order by President Nixon in 1970. It has since become a
nation killer.

In 2013 a
flood of regulations will cost thousands of Americans their jobs and drive more
industry overseas to avoid the cost of doing business in America. It will drive
up the cost of energy from electricity, along with the cost of gas and diesel
fuel. It will effectively kill much of the coal mining industry in a nation
that is the Saudi Arabia of coal, an energy source that formerly provided fifty
percent of all electricity in America.

The EPA is
girding up to kill “fracking”, a technology that has safely been in use for
decades and one that holds the promise of further provision of natural gas. The provision of oil is being thwarted as well; mostly famously by
Obama’s derailment of the Keystone XL pipeline in a nation laced with
energy-providing pipelines. Energy, the lifeblood of the nation, will be under
attack as never before.

A new EPA
ozone standard will occur, one that the EPA estimates would cost $90 billion a
year while other studies put the figure at nearly a trillion dollars and
destroy 7.4 million jobs. The EPA’s projections are that 650 additional
communities would be deemed “non-compliant” and effectively ensure plant
closings and that no new manufacturing and other businesses would set up shop.

The EPA
has pushed to regulate—control—every body of water in America, no matter how
small. A recent court decision derailed
EPA storm-water regulations that would have established a first-time standard
for post-construction storm-water runoff could include mandates on cities to
change existing buildings, storm-water sewer systems, and streets. It would
have been the most expensive rule in EPA history.

The EPA
will release regulations on the manufacture of cement—the MACT rule—that would
increase the cost of manufacturing this essential element of construction by
22% to 36%. Many such plants would have to close and the U.S. would have to
import cement from nations like China.

Expect
regulations on cooling towers to protect fish under the Clean Water Act. A
proposed coal ash rule could cost between $79 to $110 billion over the next
twenty years, ending between 183,900 and 316,000 jobs over 20 years, affecting
states that include Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Missouri. The EPA has
been regulating “farm dust” for decades and new rules would affect the nation’s
food supplies as farmers and ranchers adjust by raising fewer livestock and the
till fewer fields. Spill prevention rules would further impact farmers and
ranchers.

If you
were asked what is the most costly federal agency which would you suggest? Would it
be the Department of Homeland Security? Department of Defense? Labor?
Agriculture? Housing and Urban Development? Transportation?

The
Competitive Enterprise Institute recently published a report by Ryan Young, a
Fellow in Regulatory Studies, regarding the EPA and it is further testimony to
the way this predatory agency has gone from the first year of its operation in
1971, costing $701 million, to outlays in 2011 of $10.722 billion, employing 20,610
full-time workers.

The public
is expected to believe that this army of environmental bureaucrats are all
diligently saving Americans from particulates in the air, rain run-offs in the
water, any pesticide that might actually protect them from pests, and the
countless other life-threatening dangers that required, from 1999 to 2011, a
total of 4,995 rules in the “Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and
Deregulatory Actions.”

These
regulations have little to do with clean air and water and everything to do
with destroying the nation’s economy, putting thousands out of work at a time
when economic growth is barely occurring, and new taxes will further reduce the
spending and investment power of Americans.

Reacting
to the news of her forthcoming resignation, S.T. Kornick, Director of Research
for The Heartland Institute, said, “Jackson played the environmental ‘bad cop’
to President Obama’s ‘good cop’, but the result of their tag-team effort has
been a huge expansion of the EPA’s power. Appointing another bad cop to head
the EPA could by itself push the nation into recession.”

The most
powerful economy in the world is being destroyed from within by an agency that
has declared war on America. It must be downsized and restrained if the nation
is to survive.

The trouble with our country is, our children have been indoctrinated to the extent they know nothing that resembles science. They're all enthralled with their "smart" phones and if any of the facts such as you have discussed are mentioned, their eyes glaze over. In truth, all of the EPA's restrictions didn't come from Congress, but from ignorami who pursue goals such as "social justice", which is neither social, nor just. The right thinking half of the country must grow a pair, and soon.

Lord Monckton once said Greenpeace was founded by, among others, a personal friend. The idea was excellent! The Watermelons sniffed opportunity, entered and took it over as their own. Monckton's friend was rapidly shown the door.Plainly this too has been the action model followed in the commandeering of the EPA. The idea was excellent at concept but one which has been grotesquely malformed. How this has been achieved has been by following ways which to right-minded people, just a few years back, would have been beyond the wildest of ugly imagination.

I am speecless mr Caruba, but still, its the direction he is taking your great country to. The Muslims, arch enemies of America, relegated down his priority list. All we can do is pray and pray and pray. That the environment is now the new enemy is news. And again, thanks for your site's insights.

I friend of mine is Dr. Jay Lehr. Jay was one of the original scientists that helped form the EPA and helped write their first five foundational pieces of legislature. He now travels and speaks all over the country telling his listeners that he's now "doing penance for that". Jay says that a full 80% of what EPA is doing isn't what it was supposed to do and their functions should be turned over the state EPA's. I have sat with some of them at meetings here in Ohio and, at least in Ohio, they are a whole different breed than those at the federal level.

About Me

I am and have been for a long time a writer by profession. I have several books to my credit and my daily column, "Warning Signs", is disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites, as well as blogs. In addition, I am a longtime book reviewer and have a blog offering a monthly report on new fiction and non-fiction.